Case No. HC07C02914

was set up. 36. Mr Stimson using the Claimant’s computer system emailed customers such as John Lewis on 31st May 2007. That email was copied to the Concept-sales hotmail address. The email said (in part):-“Crowson’s have requested for me not to inform you that I will be leaving Crowson on 8th June but I feel that you need to be informed before I actually leave out of courtesy. I am setting up a new fabric company with a colleague which will operate in a new format within the trade. We already have a few exclusive deals that have been agreed with a number of high profile suppliers and have a number of products that I think you may be interested in. We have the flexibility of being able to sell under our own brand at great prices due to our structure. We have secured private investors to support the company so we can give quality service to our customers from the beginning” 37. In my view this was a flagrant breach of Mr Stimson’s duties of fidelity. It is not for him to communicate to Customers behind the Claimant’s back when he is told not to do so. The only possible reason for this was to tell the customer that he was going to set up a rival. Thus he solicited the custom of such customers. Mr Stimson in his evidence said it and the other solicitations discovered by the Claimant were unsuccessful. There are 2 ripostes to that. First it is his conduct that is relevant not whether it was successful and second there may have been other attempts which have not yet been discovered. I do not criticise the Claimant for not contacting customers and saying in effect “Has Mr Stimson solicited your custom?” That would be commercial suicide. Further customers rarely like to become involved in turf war disputes.38. On 6th June 2007 Mr Stimson using Crowson’s computer system sent to the Concept hotmail address a list of more than 70 email addresses stored on Crowson’s computer system outlook address book. The next day he arranged for a junior employee in Crowson’s IT department to organise a telephone system for Concept and the production of a letterhead for it. Both of these actions again are flagrant breaches of his duty of fidelity as an employee in my view although the latter item is probably of little significance beyond showing that Mr Stimson simply looks to his own needs and saw nothing wrong in helping himself to the Claimant’s resources if it suited his needs.39. The Claimant alleges that Mr Rider and Mr Stimson left its employment on 8th June 2007 and without its knowledge or consent they had already provided to Concept and or took with them or retained the spreadsheet and email addresses referred to above and the documents identified in schedule 1 to the Particulars of Claim. The Schedule lists a large number of documents which are plainly in my view Crowson documents. They were all delivered up by Mr Rider/Mr Stimson between 10th and 12th October 2007.40. By amendments to the Particulars of Claim (paragraphs 26A and 37A) the Claimant introduced new allegations. First was the allegation that Mr Rider and Mr Stimson solicited 2 of Crowson’s European Sales Agents namely Mr Groot and Mr Basso with a view to obtaining customers business introduced through those agents for Concept. 41. The second allegation is that whilst still employed by the Claimant Mr Rider and Mr Stimson diverted enquiries about new business and new orders received by them at the Claimant’s office to Concept. Express reference is made to an email enquiry sent by Mr Rider to his home email account on 8th June 2007 relating to an enquiry about new business from Geert Van Brussel of BRU textiles NV and an email sent by Mr Stimson on 5th June relating to an enquiry from Mustafa at Rodesma and a further email sent by him to his email account relating to an enquiry about a new account from Dean Worsley a sole trader in the Algarve.42. I will deal with these allegations in more detail when I analyse the evidence but for present purposes I observe that the general thrust of the Claimant’s allegations is not disputed by the Defendants. Their case is that what they did was not actionable. 43. Included in the large amount of documentation handed over by the Defendants to the Claimant set out above were items 1-4 and 6 of a list of 6 items which the Claimant contended contained confidential material these were included in what was called the confidential exhibit as follows:- (1) Customer listing – 8th August 2005 (2) Crowson’s worldwide customer sales database (3) Sales by customer by class 2006-7 (4) Supplier Bible (5) Concept forecast sales by customer. This document was found on Mr Rider’s old Crowson computer by the Claimant. He admitted in cross examination that he had printed off a copy but denied that he had retained a copy. I do not accept that evidence. He never explained what happened to the copy and I can see no reason why he would not having created the document not utilise it and very good reasons for doing so. It is of course no use to Crowson. (6) Express costing44. Item 4 is a significant document. It was the Supplier Bible created in April by Mr Rider and the electronic version delivered up by the Defendants was created on 12th May 2007. This was a document which Mr Rider was asked to work on in the last few weeks of his notice period. It contains each supplier’s name, address, full contact details, agents details, the individually negotiated carriage costs, lead times, type of product, what trade show they visited and the specifically negotiated costs for each of the transactions. Mr Worrall in his witness statement (paragraph 62) contended that this document was the combination of years of work and the value of the information to a competitor was literally priceless. He could not emphasise how much an advantage any competitor would have by receiving this information. I can see no legitimate reason for the copy to be created and retained by Mr Rider. The reality is that by retaining these documents the Defendants have saved themselves the trouble and time they would need to transform what they retained in their heads and what they could find by research on the internet or other sources or by contacting suppliers and customers. In other words in my view they have mounted a classic springboard operation using the Claimant’s documents to provide themselves with a ready made source of everything they need for their fledgling business without themselves putting in the effort to put the material together.45. Item 5 was a sales forecast for Concept. It was based entirely on taking the Claimant’s sales for 2007 and 2006 applying those to Concept and assuming that it would be able to obtain turnover of that amount. The Claimant found this on Mr Rider’s desktop computer at the Claimants. It was not hidden in the sense that it was not deleted from the Claimant’s computer. Other items were then discovered as set out in paragraph 5 of Mr Maynard’s first witness statement.46. The Claimant initially asked that the hearing take place in Private when the details of those documents were considered. Sitting like that causes logistical difficulties and does not cover the difficulty that might ensue if documents are inadvertently referred to whilst the court is in open sitting. I accordingly heard the entirety of the case in Private. I will not refer to any of the confidential material in detail in this judgment as it is not necessary so to do in my opinion but will maintain the privacy as regards the hearing after the judgment is delivered.